1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to frozen deserts containing, as a stabilizer composition, a water soluble hydrocolloid and microcrystalline cellulose coprocessed with an alginate salt complex. The invention also extends to the stabilizer composition and the method of formulating frozen desserts with the stabilizer.
2. Background Information
In the food industry, the term "frozen desserts" is a market category that encompasses a wide variety of popular and specialty products whose common denominator is that they are served at temperatures below the freezing point of water. Frozen desserts include dairy-based food desserts such as ice cream, ice milk, sherbet, gelato, frozen yogurt, soft serve ice cream; nondairy-based desserts such as mellorine; and specialty items such as frozen novelties, e.g., bars, cones and sandwiches. Frozen desserts also include reduced fat (also called low-fat or light) and no fat (also called fat-free) versions of many of these frozen desserts. In recent years, reduced fat and no fat frozen desserts have become a significant, growing segment of the frozen desserts market.
Frozen dessert formulations typically are multiphase compositions: solid, liquid and air, with the liquid sometimes including oil and water phases. This characteristic of frozen desserts, which is the basis for their food appeal to consumers, presents the manufacturer or formulator with difficulties in maintaining the desired product qualities until the frozen dessert product is ultimately consumed.
Negative sensory characteristics in frozen desserts usually result from perceived body or textural defects, and these may arise for a variety of reasons: formulation or ingredients used, manufacturing process employed or storage conditions used. A particularly common textural defect in frozen desserts results from the formation of large ice crystals, a problem often aggravated by fluctuations in storage temperature conditions.
Stabilization techniques are described in the prior art for reducing the potential for adverse body or textural defects in frozen desserts. Many frozen dessert stabilizers function to bind water, which reduces the likelihood of ice crystal growth during storage, and such stabilizer compositions often include hydrocolloid gums.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,400,405 and 4,400,406 both issued to Morley et al. describe whipped frozen desserts, including low fat versions, that utilize a stabilizer including a water binding agent (e.g., locust bean gum, guar gum, propylene glycol alginate, tara gum, cellulose ethers), a gelling agent (e.g., gelatin, xanthan gum, carrageenan, sodium alginate, pectin), and an insoluble blocking agent (e.g., microcrystalline cellulose, cellulose fibers) (see cols. 7-8).
U.S. Pat. No. 4,421,778 issued to Kahn et al. describes freezer stable whipped ice cream and milk shake products that contain as stabilizers microcrystalline cellulose and carboxymethylcellulose, optionally with a third stabilizer, calcium carrageenan or sodium alginate (col. 1, lines 35-53.).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,366,742 issued to Tuason, Jr. et al. describes a dry microcrystalline cellulose composition (MCC) that is MCC coprocessed with an alginate calcium/sodium salt complex. A frozen dessert containing 4% butterfat and this composition in a 80:20 MCC to alginate ratio is described at cols. 10-11 as providing functionality that was equivalent to colloidal microcrystalline cellulose, i.e., MCC coprocessed with sodium carboxymethylcellulose.
An object of the present invention is a stabilizer composition and method useful for providing heat shock resistance in frozen desserts.